A flowerpot at Lotusland

Sometimes it is the most plain of things that you notice. The lotus’s (sp?) are in bloom at Lotusland in Santa Barbara… so I spent the morning there with friends yesterday. This little pot caught my eye because it is made from cheap talavera tiles from Mexico. Anyone could make this with a little cement and tile and a handmade form. There is a quality about it that is almost indescribable. Maybe if we were speaking french I could describe it better… over a glass of wine and with bread torn from the bagette. Yet that indescribable quality makes it. It is not perfect… it shows the fact that it was handmade… It is beautiful but it is not fancy… and it has patina. I want my entire life to be like this flowerpot.

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I guess I could keep perusing the Internet, or go straight to the source – about Simple Shoes (TM). Oh so sad. I have known for a while – but I just wanted to let you know that in addition to some nice shoes, one of the best things I bought from you were the INSERTS. With bunions, those have saved my feet many a time. I went to one of these comfort shoe stores this morning on the east coast, tried on a pair of $75 inserts and I tell you, they were not as comfortable.

Having said all that, do you make recs these days for natural or recycled shoes or just shoes/inserts in general? Or are you staying away from doing that.

Sorry, no real suggestions for you on shoe brands. as regards inserts… There are no real great environmentally friendly materials that I know of that will stand up to the sustained impacts of walking on them. My most successful sock liners used Polyurethane (PU) in combination with ethyl vinyl acetate (EVA) heel and arch to make our “molded footbeds” or “sock liners” (as they are known in the industry). Many inexpensive shoes use latex (pretty poor) most mid priced shoes use Polyurethane alone. We did use natural latex in some cases… but it does not perform nearly as well as PU… and so you have to weigh your feelings about where your priority lays. I suggest you look for versions with the EVA under the heel and in the arch area. EVA under just the heel is ok too… and a lot more common. Find one that you feel comfortable with. It is often cheaper to buy a pair of athletic shoes with a good sock liner… than it is to pay the ridiculous markup for so called orthopedic sockliners. Just put that athletic liner in the shoes you like the look of (trade sock liners) . I always preferred to use the absolute best sockliners I could even if it was a very plain and cheap upper… because that is what makes the shoe “feel” good. This was center to Simple’s mission…. “all of the technology… none of the hype” The real truth is that I had a lot of trouble with environmentalism vs everyday comfort and durability… and this conflict along with my own feelings about consumerism made me eventually choose to sell the brand as the two are really almost incompatible based on my attempts. The more sustainable product is so much more dramatically difficult to produce and also be durable at a price people can afford… that they abandon the brand in favor of cheaper but less sustainable products that that last longer. The industry as a whole did not adopt the processes and materials… and so we were a bit of an island… while the ocean rose around us. The industry needs to change… and my years at the helm of Simple didn’t do a thing to change it. The people that bought Simple from me did a fantastic job of pushing the brand to being a massively more environmentally friendly company… but even they… a relatively huge company… could not convince the industry to move to a more sustainable way of making footwear. That is what eventually shut the brand down. Brands like Tom’s would be my only suggestion for a sustainable shoe brand… but unfortunately they wear out very fast. This is a huge problem still in this industry… but is the reality. Sustainable shoes… are either SUPER expensive and thus out of reach for people… or they are regularly priced but don’t last as long as shoes made from traditional non sustainable materials. Best. Eric

You know it’s funny. After I sent the orig message, I went to my simple shoes, and looked inside, and now I’m not sure if they are inserts or if they came with the shoes. In any case, they are the bomb. I think I”m going to return my Dr Scholls to CVS today. What I’ll do is just transfer the inserts from my ss into the new shoes. Anyway, I have your long email in my inbox to keep. Thanks.

Also, maybe one of the most sustainable things to do is to keep getting one’s favorite shoes repaired? I do that. But at some point, after 10 or 11 plus years of city walking, they will simply wear out and not be repairable anymore. It’d be nice to know what to do with them at that point – can any of those materials be recycled? Just something to be pondered.

“It is not perfect… it shows the fact that it was handmade… It is beautiful but it is not fancy… and it has patina. I want my entire life to be like this flowerpot.” Me too. And I love these two sentences. Perfect, but with patina.